Mentioned features

This article is about features mentioned by Mojang developers. For features that are currently being added, see Planned versions.

Since the beginning of Minecraft's development, there have been a number of features that were mentioned by Mojang AB developers. These features are either currently planned for the next update, but have not yet appeared in a development version, or have simply been dropped or forgotten about.

Note that this page only documents features that were mentioned but are not yet in the game. Features in development versions are described on the parent version page.

Before stone slabs were added to 0.26, Notch ran a test of dirt slabs. In the test they replaced dirt blocks, so that dirt surface without grass was half a block lower than grass. However it made a mess of the sides of cliffs and underground. They were never added to the actual game and were only mentioned once.[1] They replaced all dirt blocks and did not grow grass on top.

Dinnerbone asked Twitter how they would feel about colored planks.[2] He announced the results as being, "30% 'please no', 80% 'yes please'. Yes, that's 110%. I don't even know."[3] Despite this, he canceled the idea and instead added hardened clay, which can be dyed. The dyed planks were abandoned after Dinnerbone realized they would require slabs and stairs of each color too. However, each tree type has their own color plank. This includes stairs, slabs, doors, fences and fence gates. However, they are not dyed, just simply the color of the appropriate tree.

Lanterns were crafted blocks originally planned to be added in the Halloween Update. However, they were delayed due to lack of time and were going to be implemented in a future update.[4]

With the addition of the lantern, torches would flicker out and need to be re-lit with flint and steel. The lantern would serve as a permanent source of light. According to Notch, when the update would occur, all torches placed on the map, in the inventory, and in chests prior to the update would be converted to lanterns. To do this, the lanterns would use the (former) block ID of torches along with a re-skin.

On January 13, 2011 Notch claimed that lanterns were "postponed",[5] and added on January 20 that he was "not sure" when they would be implemented.[6]Notch announced on November 18, 2011, at the Mojang Panel at MineCon 2011, that lanterns would not be added to Minecraft due to large negative community response towards the effects the new item would have had on torches. Instead, other types of lighting would be added,[7] such as redstone lamps and glowstone.[8]

The Lectern was an old project of Dinnerbone's. It was meant to be a stand for books so you could easily read them. He was well on his way to creating it when he encountered problems and scrapped the idea, but mentioned that he might pick up work on the lectern in the near future.[9] Dinnerbone stated in his Reddit AMA on December 18, 2013 that he had revisited lecterns but scrapped them again as "something about them just didn't feel right".[10]

Fish were a passive mob that Notch showed interest in adding. In the Halloween Update, Notch said he would add fish.[11] However, they were only added as an item. There is no coding for a fish mob in the game itself, nor is there a model that currently exists. Despite being two years since the mob was first mentioned, Jon Kagstrom has stated that he is planning to add fish as a mob.[12] Notch states in the reference the 'ability to catch fish' which is already implemented. Nothing says anything about adding a model. During Notch's AMA on Reddit, when asked about what happened to his plans of adding fish as a mob, he responded, "Oh yeah, the fish!"

These features were mentioned at one point but later abandoned or their current status is unknown. Note that some of these features were mentioned by developers who either no longer work at Mojang, or no longer work on Minecraft.

Audio loops have not yet been added to the game, but may be implemented to play when the player is in a specific location (In caves, forests, oceans, and beside a waterfall). This has been partially added in 1.4 with the addition of lava and water ambient sounds.

Notch mentioned on his blog, The Word of Notch, that friends lists would be added after Beta 1.8.[13] The Minecraft documentary team of 2 Player Productions filmed a Keynote roadmap, containing these lines.[14][15] Kristoffer mentioned on Twitter that he is currently working on friends lists for Scrolls, then for other Mojang games. These will be available for players with Mojang accounts. At MineCon 2012 Jeb stated that it would be a large implementation on the server side and will be used for all Mojang games, and that is a big project.[16][17]

Players will not have to download scripts within or outside of the client, and therefore no client-side modifications will be necessary.

The server would be able to create custom commands, assign certain server functions to blocks, and create user groups.

Notch has said that he wanted Lua to be an extension for Minecraft. He does not want Lua to turn Minecraft into a game engine. Essentially, Lua, although a nice addition, will not revolutionize game-play in Minecraft.

Ryan Holtz stated that he wanted to improve the rendering system to allow for customizable models and animations.[20][21] Dinnerbone later stated that player models would not be able to be changed.[22]

On December 18, 2013, on Reddit, Dinnerbone answered the question "If you could add one feature to Minecraft without the hassle of coding or modeling, just anything, and you wouldn't need anyone's permission: What do?".

Notch revealed during the 8th Seecret Friday Update that he would add dragons, one being the ender dragon, the other being red dragons.[25] Jeb informed participants of his AMA on Reddit that he would add red dragons, but was unsure exactly how.[26] The red dragon has not subsequently been added.

On October 22, 2013, Dinnerbone tweeted that the red dragon is "shelved" and not in development.

“

It was never promised, we have no plans to add a red dragon at this time.

Dinnerbone mentioned on Twitter that he was experimenting with adding seasons, and varying the length of day and night according to season. He also mentioned it during MineCon 2013.[29][30] Seasons may include changes in color of tree leaves and may also be tied to real time.[31][32]

Spike blocks were originally planned for Beta 1.7, working by extending and retracting spikes (and making them more "spike pistons" than anything), but were replaced by sticky pistons. On May 28, 2012, Dinnerbone stated that he'd like to add spike blocks, but is unsure of how to implement them.[33]

The Plugin API[34][35], dubbed "Workbench", is a feature that allows mod developers to easily add more content to the game. In contrast to mods, plugins will not require any alteration of the minecraft.jar file itself, although they will also be slightly limited in their feature set.[36][37] The Bukkit team will help make the official Plugin API[38].

An inventory rewrite was originally added in the snapshot 14w17a for 1.8, but a roadblock was hit and they had to shelve it before the release of 1.8.[39] Other changes to the inventory have been mentioned, including spectators can now look at people's inventory, visible health/armor bar on all players,[40], seeing players' GUI when spectating from their POV[41] and the return of shift-double-clicking[42][43]

Coral. Notch abandoned the idea, stating "It's really hard to draw a single block that looks like corals, since it's really more about crazy amounts of variation and diversity. But I do know that the corals will have tiny fish particles around them."[53]

JSON support on signs[122] and possibly implementing a way to "make it work in survival"[123]. Searge later said "The plan is to eventually have every text that can be displayed on the screen use the text component system, then using § won't be necessary anymore."[124]

Dinnerbone's original demonstration of the .mcmeta format for resource packs contained a sample properties file for fonts to determine character size and spacing.[127] Despite the game code containing the code to read the files, it never actually uses them leaving character width and spacing to be determined dynamically.

A mob which camouflages with its environment - when developing the Shulker mob, Jeb initially had it so that the mob would camouflage with the surroundings, but due to difficulties with the code and rendering, he decided to abandon this element of the mob, but stated that it may happen in the future.[131]

Notch once planned to make floating masses of land that required obsidian veins to stay afloat. He later stated that he disliked the idea.[132]

Entities possibly being able to switch between weapons - "There are no plans right now for entities to use that [offhand] slot, but it might be a potential change in the future. It's just cleaner to have generic support for the off-hand slot than adding a special-case the player class only."[133]

Herobrine. In every new Minecraft update like Halloween Update, Adventure Update, Pretty Scary Update, Redstone Update, Horse Update, The Update That Changed The World, The Bountiful Update, The Combat Update and The Frostburn Update it says "removed Herobrine", but Herobrine was never implemented. This has also appeared in the changelog for Scrolls version 0.103.0.[148]

When Hardcore mode was announced, a joke screenshot of "Ultra Hardcore Mode" was shown, where death would revoke an account's premium status.[149]

Jeb joked about adding chips if 100% of the community agreed on what type the chips would be.[150]

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